Sciessent

Sciessent

COMPANY
• HQ in Massachusetts; sales reps travel throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia; a fully operational branch office is located in Taiwan
• Industry: Anti-microbial, anti-odor and water repellent solutions for wide range of products

OVERVIEW
Founded in 2000 as Algion Technologies, the company became Sciessent in 2011. In 2015, the firm decided to switch from Sage MAS 500 to Acumatica, resulting in improved connections with customers and enhanced productivity through mobile access.

SOLUTION
• Acumatica Financial Management
• Acumatica Distribution Management
• Acumatica Customer Management
• JAAS Advanced Manufacturing Software (JAMS) KEY RESULTS
• Improved connections with customers and vendors, due to automatically generated communications on orders’ status
• 24/7 staff access to the system from anywhere, at any time, through the Cloud
• Savings of time and effort for sales reps in the field, with new mobile app

“What really made Acumatica more appealing to us was the fact that it’s cloud-based. We had VPN service before ... but it was slow and clunky, and because this is cloud-based I can work from anywhere at any time.”

SITUATION
Sciessent is a global company that offers chemical treatment products used in several industries, ranging from drinking water to clothing and footwear, medical devices, and surfaces such as flooring and counters. The products include antimicrobial, anti-odor and water repellent treatments. Sciessent has about 50 employees worldwide, primarily at offices in Massachusetts and Taiwan.

Sciessent’s Vice President of Finance, Jennifer Moore, says the company had utilized Sage MAS 500 for about seven years, and in 2015 they faced the loss of Sage support for MAS 500. Their partner recommended Acumatica as a way to replace and upgrade their financial management system.

SOLUTION
Sciessent purchased Acumatica Financial Management, Distribution Management and Customer Management suites. They are also using JAAS Advanced Manufacturing Software (JAMS) from JAAS Systems, which is integrated with Acumatica.

Ms. Moore says a key advantage of changing to Acumatica is mobility: “What really made it more appealing to us was the fact that it’s cloud-based.” She adds, “We had VPN service before, so I could get into MAS 500, but it was slow and clunky, and because this is cloud-based I can work from anywhere at any time.”

BENEFITS
Even after only a few months of using Acumatica, the Sciessent staff appreciate it, Ms. Moore says. “People who are using different aspects of the software are all happy,” she reports. She adds that the new system is easy to use: “The interface is user-friendly, people find it easier to navigate—the processes are simpler than the MAS 500 processes.”

Acumatica has allowed Sciessent to improve their customer relations, according to Ms. Moore: “It has given us better contact with our customers, because we’ve got it set up so everything is being sent electronically out of the system. When we get a PO from the customer, they automatically get an acknowledgment from us that we’ve received the order, and then once it’s shipped, they get the invoice sent automatically, so they know it’s shipped.” Ms. Moore adds that the new system has also improved connections with their vendors: “It’s made the business process more fluid.”

Another key enhancement from Acumatica is the mobile app. “The entire company is thrilled with the new expense system … They like the app, which is really good,” Ms. Moore reports. She adds that one sales rep who traveled to Asia for three weeks found that Acumatica saved him time and effort: “The app allowed him to enter things on the go, and use the phone to take pictures of the receipts, so he wasn’t worrying about keeping track of three weeks of receipts … The other system was just a bit clunky, and they didn’t like it.”

“[Acumatica] has given us better contact with our customers, because we’ve got it set up so everything is being sent electronically out of the system…it’s made the business process more fluid.” – Jennifer Moore, Vice President of Finance, Sciessent

For her own work, Ms. Moore says Acumatica has reduced the steps needed to process data: “I had to do an import, and about five other steps in MAS 500.” With Acumatica, she only needs to take a couple of steps to do the same job, she says.

Moore says another area they’ve seen improvement is moving their products between warehouses: “We do a lot of warehouse-to-warehouse transfers. It’s now an on-the-fly entry; in MAS 500 it took about 10 steps. Using Acumatica, the process is much more fluid and saves time.”

As the company gains more experience using Acumatica, Ms. Moore expects they’ll enjoy even greater time-savings and productivity improvements in the future.

Related Work

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